I am surely not a swimmer, but after the recent tragic flooding in Texas, it got me and my roommate wondering…
They’ll still keep you afloat, but the bigger danger is being hit by objects being moved by said water.
Also getting caught in debris and being pulled under harder than the life jacket lifts you up.
Life jacket still better than no jacket!
Indeed. I was in a thread on Reddit about exactly this subject, and it was truly bizarre how adamant a lot of people were about how you should not having a life jacket. They were pointing out all these things - you could get trapped inside your house, it doesn’t save you from being hit by debris, it doesn’t protect you against diseases that are in the water.
Yeah, those are all bad things. Don’t jump into floodwaters for fun! Stay out of the flood water if you can at all possibly manage it. But if I’m in a place where I might end up falling into floodwaters anyway, it’s far far better to have a life vest on than to not have it on.
As someone who works on ships, it’s truly baffling how many “but what if…!? Life jacket bad!” you see in the intertubes.
I have one of these auto-inflaters and I always wear it on deck. Yes, the color will make me more visible to sharks and a myriad of other theoretical hazards, but I still would prefer not to drown.
One important note: if you for some reason need to wear BOTH an inflatable life jacket and a climbing harness (which I sometimes need to do), make sure to put on the climbing harness first. The harness will not give way to an inflating life jacket, but your chest and ability to breathe will.
Life jackets truly are the seat belts of the sea. “My uncle only survived the blaze from the crash because he was ejected from the car!”
Vaccine people. Same thing. They will happily start a case and put it against something with 12 more digits of probability behind it and feel like they have specialized knowledge. Dunning kreuger as well.
Another important design feature is that a properly worn life jacket will keep your face out of the water if you were to lose consciousness while wearing it.
A life jacket can’t effectively protect you against debris, but it can help keep you from drowning from exhaustion as you try to dodge and seek an escape. And if you do die anyway, it could help your body be found, for the sake of those who mourn you.
You want a Type-1, made to keep an unconscious adult on their back with their head out of the water for an extended period of time. I use type 3 when I canoe on the lake. I’m not a whitewater enthusiast. The type 1 are made for offshore shit where the person might be knocked out when they fall off the boat.
But yeah, in a flash flood it’s only going to keep you on top. Probably get smashed by a tree or a car or something. Best to stay out of floodwater.
edit: but better a type 3 or even a ring than nothing. If I was in a hurricane or flash flood situation I’d rather have a type 1
A life jacket is what can help save you once you exhaust yourself fighting against a torrent of water. If you need to do something a bit reckless to save yourself or someone else, then it can help you catch your breath a bit and keep your head above water.
The thing is, if you are needing to rely on a lifejacket, the situation may already be a bit desperate. If you are able to get some kind of an early warning system, then that will go a lot farther at helping you get to safety. Getting a lifejacket could help make a difference if you are in a potential flood zone.
A warning like a map of where the most dangerous fast moving flood waters will be? A place where cabins should not be built?
You would hope that no houses would be built in potential flooding zones, but that involves pesky things like ‘regulations’ or ‘caring about other peoples lives’.
Tap for spoiler
(/s)
The cabins at the camp predated the flood maps, but the owners were explicitly warned and just didn’t want to move them. Nobody made them and now children are dead.
